Mean Girls

Men don’t understand women in many things, one of them also being how they can be so mean to each other, even among friends. While the former keep things simple and don’t bother about (what to them seem as) trivial stuff, the latter do the exact opposite.

Let’s face it; it’s a truth: women are mean. To each other more often than not. Even among friends, no woman can hide her jealousy/envy for the success of another, be it work or social life.

And it all starts young. Girls at school are abysmal for lack of another word. The movie Mean Girls was not all fictional; it was based on real life. The worst bullies are females. Women think that if they bring another down, if they degrade, undermine, and make them feel inferior, they will rise up instead. But it doesn’t work that way.

Women are constantly trying to find a flaw in another. They say demeaning things to each other – even as a joke – and when it comes to male friends, they assume the role of the evil mother-in-law with no other woman ever being ‘good enough’ for them. They criticise with the ease they utter words out of fear they will lose their ranking among their clan.

It’s a general trait this, perhaps most evident among female groups: we think that if we impose our deemed superiority over others, we’ll dominate.

We judge because we’re insecure and we’re insecure because we judge.

Read that again. Because it all comes down to that simple fact.

Women have many positives too, don’t get me wrong, belonging to the gender myself, we do have our brilliant sides too. It usually depends what you awaken in one. Some of us are lucky to have found a couple of women we call sisters, who don’t give out all that negativity mentioned above. Perhaps if we were all more grateful for that and took better care of each other, we would instead, rise together. And we would all be much better off for it.

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Reprogramming a lifestyle

You know why we refuse to accept something we cannot control? Because we can’t handle uncertainty. We are not wired to ‘go with the flow’ and let things happen. People are impatient. And insecure. We need to know that there is a beginning, a middle and an end to things. Otherwise, we go insane.

This year has been strange and extraordinary in every sense and at every level. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a serious strain not only on global healthcare systems, but on our mental health as well.

People can’t handle so many restrictions and so many recurring constraints.

But most of all, they can’t accept being told what to do, or rather, what not to do.

We can’t breathe with masks on because we’re told we need them. We feel we’re being deprived of oxygen because that is what our mind is telling us.

In every lockdown, we remember the need to go outside, to walk, run, cycle, swim, and sit in the park under the sun. Yet, during our ‘normal’ lives we may hardly even go out onto the balcony for some fresh air, spending the entire day in front of a screen at a an office.

And now, that screen is our way of communicating with the world.

Ironic. Tragic. Call it what you will. But this new reality has caused an irrevocable change to what we consider ‘normal’.  And the things we consider as a given or as common sense.

The world has hit pause and forced us to reconsider everything we considered ‘ordinary’. We need to reprogramme our entire lifestyle and way of thinking, working and living at whatever life stage we currently find ourselves.

The worse thing about the recurring and long-drawn lockdowns is that we’re challenging our own minds, the limits of our sanity, the strength of our beliefs, and the potency of our optimism. The entire situation places us in the unwanted position of not knowing whether to make plans or what these can entail because we very simply do not know and cannot tell what tomorrow may bring.

Uncertainty is the root of our discomfort.  

But no matter how much we resist, complain, moan and react, there are some things that are beyond our control. A global pandemic is among them.

So if you had to answer the question “if you could be anywhere in the world, where would that be?”, what would you say?

Some would answer the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights; others at the top of Mount Everest, at the Caribbean, at a fancy resort, at your beach house, a mountain chalet, somewhere no one has been to before, anywhere you cannot be at this very moment, somewhere different to where you are.

But the truth is, the answer is not a destination. Because in pondering your reply, it’s who you want to be with that springs to mind. As you grow older, you realise it’s not really the place that matters, but the moments and people you spend them with.

In essence, everything we need is here – within us – we just haven’t acknowledged it enough so as not to worry about what is beyond our needs and control.

It’s not the place or circumstances that need to change. It is our entire lifestyle and mentality.

Emotions in action

Don’t believe those who tell you they love you. Believe those who show you they do.

Because as cliché as it is, actions do speak louder than words. And we are fallible creatures, who need proof.

We need to feel loved and cared for. That we have the attention we seek and the respect and acknowledgement we strive for.

But we need to see it too, to believe it.

Otherwise, we feed our insecurities. We begin to doubt everything and everyone, even ourselves. And that is where the trouble begins.

Because insecurities deprive us of joy, as they become tension, irritation and anger. And the latter is simply an externalisation of the fear that we are not loved enough.

Leading to the vicious circle binding care with the actions to prove it.

If you don’t state what you want, you may never receive it. It’s sort of the same thing. If you don’t show what you feel, you may not have it reciprocated. And in the end, you’re the one at loss.

The loudness of insecurity

It was the first time Max had found himself in a psychologist’s office. He was postponing it for too long; he needed someone to listen to all the things that had accumulated inside him and were causing him stomach aches. The main problem he had to face was that he cared too much – he over-thought and over-worried about anything. Maybe this doctor would be able to show him how to care less, or at least how to not allow things to affect him as much.

Outside in the waiting room was a sign on the wall, a blue canvas with the inscription “Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud.” It resonated with Max, as he thought about all the people in his life who annoyed him the most and who he wrongly permitted to distress him – they were all people who claimed center stage, those who thought that everything should be about them, who adopted an attitude close to that of a bully, and who pretended to mask their low self-esteem in (often overly) socialization.

For an hour, Max poured out his feelings to the person he had just met sitting across him in the small, yet cozy, room. He found himself telling him stories and emotions that he had never even admitted to himself. Psychologists, he realised, have a way of making you feel comfortable enough to share your inner most thoughts without dwelling too much on what you’re saying.

When the psychologist’s turn to talk came, Max took out a small notebook to write certain things down. They may have been just phrases, but they would help him in changing his own attitude and facing the situations he was forced to deal with on a daily basis.

“Insecurity is an ugly thing. It makes you hate people you don’t even know. More so, insults are the last resort of insecure people with a crumbling position trying to appear confident. Insecure people seek approval. They try to talk everyone down so that can feel superior. Don’t allow yourself to fall into that trap. Try, as much as you can to ignore them. Just don’t interfere in their lives so that they won’t interfere in yours. Remember, you only give them more power the more attention you devote to them. So simply turn the other way. Demonstrate your own confidence by shying away from the spotlight; let it chase you, not the other way round. Do something different instead: build people up, remind them they’re worthy, tell them they’re incredible; be a light in an often too dim world”.

Max left the office feeling uplifted. Sometimes, all it takes is some words of encouragement to view the situation in a different aspect.